Introduction:
The AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate certification is designed for individuals who want to validate their skills in designing and deploying scalable, highly available, and fault-tolerant systems on AWS. This course covers AWS services and best practices to create cost-effective, resilient, and scalable cloud architectures. Participants will learn how to design and implement applications on the AWS platform, ensuring optimal performance and security. The course also prepares participants for the AWS Solutions Architect – Associate exam (SAA-C03).

Objectives:
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Understand the AWS cloud platform and its global infrastructure.
• Design and deploy scalable, highly available, and fault-tolerant systems using AWS services.
• Implement secure and cost-effective solutions on AWS.
• Understand AWS networking, storage, compute, and database services.
• Manage and monitor AWS resources using CloudWatch, CloudTrail, and other tools.
• Prepare for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exam.

Who Should Attend?
This course is ideal for IT professionals, developers, and systems administrators who want to learn about AWS cloud architecture and prepare for the AWS Solutions Architect certification. It is suitable for:

• Cloud architects and engineers.
• IT professionals working with AWS or planning to move their applications to the cloud.
• Developers and DevOps professionals.
• Anyone interested in pursuing the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate certification.

Day 1: Introduction to AWS and Cloud Architecture

Morning Session:

• Overview of Cloud Computing and AWS

  • What is cloud computing? Benefits and service models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS).
  • AWS global infrastructure: Regions, Availability Zones, and edge locations.
  • Key AWS services: EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, IAM, and VPC.
  • AWS pricing models: On-demand, reserved, and spot instances.

• Understanding AWS Well-Architected Framework

  • The five pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework: Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, and Cost Optimization.
  • How to design solutions that align with AWS best practices.

Afternoon Session:

• Core AWS Services

  • Overview of compute services: EC2, Lambda, Elastic Beanstalk, and Lightsail.
  • Overview of storage services: S3, EBS, EFS, and Glacier.
  • Introduction to databases in AWS: RDS, DynamoDB, and Aurora.

• Hands-On Lab: Launching EC2 Instances and S3 Buckets

  • Participants will launch an EC2 instance, configure security groups, and manage storage using S3 buckets.

Day 2: AWS Networking and Security

Morning Session:

• Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

  • Overview of VPC: Subnets, route tables, internet gateways, NAT gateways.
  • Configuring VPCs: Public and private subnets, VPC peering, and VPN connections.
  • Security groups and network access control lists (NACLs).
  • Best practices for securing your VPC.

• AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

  • Introduction to IAM: Users, groups, roles, and policies.
  • Best practices for managing identities and access to AWS resources.
  • Configuring MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) and access keys.

Afternoon Session:

• Hands-On Lab: Configuring VPC and IAM
  • Participants will create and configure a VPC with public and private subnets, configure security groups, and establish an IAM role with policies.
• Introduction to AWS Security Best Practices
  • Encryption options for AWS resources (S3, EBS, RDS).
  • AWS Key Management Service (KMS) for managing encryption keys.
  • Using CloudTrail and CloudWatch for logging and monitoring AWS resources.

Day 3: AWS Compute and Storage Solutions

Morning Session:

• EC2 Instances and Auto Scaling

  • Overview of EC2 instance types and configurations.
  • Implementing auto scaling: Launch configurations, scaling policies, and load balancing with ELB.
  • High availability and fault tolerance with EC2.

• Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) and CloudFront

  • Understanding load balancing with ELB: Classic Load Balancer, Application Load Balancer, and Network Load Balancer.
  • Amazon CloudFront: Content Delivery Network (CDN) and caching.

Afternoon Session:

• Hands-On Lab: Configuring Auto Scaling and ELB
  • Participants will configure an EC2 instance, set up an auto-scaling group, and configure ELB for load balancing across multiple EC2 instances.
• Amazon S3 and EBS Storage
  • Understanding object storage with S3: Buckets, object versioning, and lifecycle policies.
  • Configuring Elastic Block Store (EBS) for EC2 instances.
  • Backup and disaster recovery strategies for EC2 instances and EBS volumes.

Day 4: Databases, Monitoring, and Cost Optimization

Morning Session:

• AWS Database Services

  • Amazon RDS: Relational databases, backups, and multi-availability zone deployments.
  • Amazon DynamoDB: NoSQL database and its use cases.
  • Amazon Aurora: Managed relational database with high availability.

• Monitoring and Logging

  • Using Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring AWS resources and applications.
  • Using AWS CloudTrail for API call logging and auditing.
  • Set up alarms and notifications in CloudWatch.

Afternoon Session:

• Cost Optimization in AWS

  • Understanding AWS pricing models and cost calculation tools (AWS Pricing Calculator).
  • Best practices for optimizing costs in AWS: Reserved instances, spot instances, and auto-scaling.
  • Managing costs with AWS Budgets and Cost Explorer.

• Hands-On Lab: Configuring RDS and CloudWatch

  • Participants will configure an RDS database instance, set up CloudWatch monitoring for EC2 and RDS, and create CloudWatch alarms.

Day 5: Advanced Architecting, Final Exam Preparation, and Certification Review

Morning Session:

• Advanced Architecting on AWS

  • Designing for high availability, scalability, and fault tolerance.
  • Implementing hybrid cloud solutions with AWS Direct Connect.
  • Architecting applications for performance and cost optimization.

• Hands-On Lab: Advanced Architecture Design

  • Participants will design an AWS solution architecture that incorporates EC2, RDS, S3, and VPC for high availability and scalability.

Afternoon Session:

• Review and Exam Preparation

  • Recap of key topics covered throughout the course.
  • Common exam topics and preparation strategies.
  • Practice exam questions and discussion.
  • Final Q&A session to clarify any remaining doubts.

• Final Exam and Certification Preparation

  • Participants will take a practice exam to assess their readiness for the AWS Solutions Architect – Associate certification exam.
  • Review answers and explanations to ensure thorough understanding.